Calls For Programmatic Reform; Targeted Victory Gives Data Access

360i President Jared Belsky calls for programmatic reform in a column for AdAge, citing confusion about automation, opaque operating models and a general lack of integration. "Agencies are in the business of being trusted advisors," he says. "Current programmatic models aren't designed around this trusted advisor theory, which is leading more marketers to consider taking programmatic inhouse. This can be a daunting and challenging undertaking for most brands, as programmatic talent can be very costly and the capital investment around this model is very real.” Read it.

Playing Politics

The Romney/Ryan campaign failed in its 2012 presidential bid, but its campaign donor list lives on. Targeted Victory and its self-service arm, Targeted Engagement, are giving its users access to that dataset through a political audience exchange. “It’s a fundraising arms race” out there, Targeted Victory co-founder Michael Beach told AdExchanger. “We’re licensing this data and making it available again. … Even if you’re running for dog catcher somewhere, you’ll have access, and that’s something that’s never been done on the right or the left before.” Details here.

Androids In India

Mobile advertising is booming in the Asia-Pacific market. The region has seen 70% year-over-year growth in mobile ad impressions, according to new research from Opera Mediaworks. The report [get it] also found that India is the biggest driver of mobile ad impressions in APAC – up 260% since July 2013 – a trend driven largely by the country’s rapid shift from feature phones to smart devices. Of that, Android’s share is an impressive 41.7% to iOS’s tiny .04%.More on that.

Europe’s Mad For Programmatic Video

Ad spend across the pond is rapidly shifting to digital video, according to Adap.tv's “European State of the Video Industry” report. “With the advent of new data-driven practices – including the rapid adoption of private marketplaces and the growth of programmatic TV – there are new opportunities (and obstacles) that advertisers, agencies and publishers must understand in order to continue to capitalise on consumer demand for video,” reads the report. Though DSPs remain the dominant buying channel, private marketplaces were the runner-up method. Read more via The Drum.

Sales Architects

"I think I’ve nailed what great sellers do: they engineer experiences," writes Doug Weaver in The Drift. "The mediocre ones? They’re the ones who get all caught up in the performance they’re giving, the lines they recite, and the slides they flip through." Sales pitches could benefit from less scripting and more architecting, according to Weaver. Read how.